Ordinary Miracles excerpt 1: better, stronger, faster? YOLO!

YOLO

A few years ago I went into a local high school to talk to some of the pupils about the Easter story. It wasn't easy. I had a cracking talk prepared, even though I do say so myself, but they weren't interested. I changed tack and started asking them questions. Who believes that Jesus rose from the dead? One girl put her hand up and said ‘Yeah, I do’. I was encouraged by this and made the mistake of asking her to say more: ‘Yeah, like, it’s like why would they make that up if it wasn't true?’ I nodded encouragingly at the young apologist. ‘It’s like mermaids innit? They must be real, fairies too, why would people make them up?’ Either she was really cleverly taking me down here, or she was embarrassingly serious. I suspected the latter so offered the question to the rest of the group.

Anyone else? A girl in the corner, chewing gum, feet on the table, puts her hand up. ‘I don't think Jesus rose from the dead’. Good. Let’s have a debate then. I ask her how she has come to this conclusion. She replies with a crushing acronym: ‘YOLO’. For those of you over a certain age, YOLO stands for You Only Live Once, and for a short while, before it fell out of fashion, it was a rallying cry encouraging young people to live for the moment, to make a bucket list, to have as many experiences as they can, because, well…YOLO.

Even though YOLO is no longer cool, the concept is still a driving force for a generation wanting to find some significance in their lives. Be yourself, be outstanding - you're unique and special - be the best. Go viral. Be on the X Factor. Second is nothing. Get better, stronger, faster, reach higher. YOLO!

Nowhere is this more evident than on social media. The buzz of putting up a great picture and watching the likes flood in. Your clever/funny/wise tweet or meme getting retweeted hundreds of times, or your YouTube video going viral. There are celebrities on Twitter who have ‘hilarious’ banter about who has the most followers. The more followers you have, the more powerful and respected you are.

This kind of school playground talk (mine is bigger than yours!) is even prevalent among Christians. There are some church leaders I know whose conversation starter with other church leaders is always: ‘How many have you got now?’ How many have you got? That’s the kind of question you ask about a stamp collection, or a kid collecting football stickers, and no way to talk about people! 

In my early twenties I was in a worship band that led worship at lots of the big Christian festivals in the UK. In some places there was a real celebrity culture and hierarchy, depending on the size of stage you had performed on, or the size of the church you were in. There was a trend of trying to climb up a ladder of success. We were interviewed once for a Christian TV channel after leading worship at a well known festival, and the interviewer said to us ‘this must be a big step up the ladder for you guys, playing at this festival for this amount of people’. I was surprised - we were there to lead some people in worshipping God, not to climb up some ladder - probably a ladder that only has about 3 rungs with not much of a view at the top! Surely Jesus would be burning the ladder if he was here now? 

I have experienced this in the church too. A man on a gap year in another church came to do a placement in our church. When he first arrived I made him a cup of tea. He was deeply embarrassed that a ‘Pastor’ was making him a brew, when he felt it should be the other way round! On another occasion, I had spoken in front of a big crowd at a Christian youth festival, and our church were also running one of the cafes for the event. That afternoon, I was vacuuming the floor of the cafe getting ready to open, when a teenager walking past saw me and came in. She stared for a moment then came over to me and said: ‘Excuse me, but are you the guy who was speaking on the main stage this morning?’ I said yes and she said ‘So you were up there this morning, and now you’re in here, doing the vacuuming! That’s so amazing’. 

For a while I was overtaken by the moment. I was the Humble Preacher. The Vacuuming Pastor, equally at home on big stages and cleaning up cafes. I deliberately vacuumed near the door for a while longer, in case someone else might notice my humility. I imagined writing my first book Humility and How I Achieved It: a guide to servanthood in the kingdom of God. Sponsored by Dyson and PG Tips. 

How have we got to a stage where someone thinks it out of place for a church leader to make someone a cup of tea, or is full of surprised admiration for the fact that a speaker is doing a bit of tidying up? Are we followers of Jesus or not? Didn't he say something about the greatest among us being the servant of all? It should shock us if our leaders are not doing the washing up, or giving someone a lift at their inconvenience, or bringing a meal round for someone in need. Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to do the washing up. 

In his book Gracias, Henri Nouwen gives this stunning challenge:

'My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up with meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organise people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you  are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't be to know people by name, to eat and drink with  them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes and hugs that you do not simply like them, you truly love them'. 

My top 5 books of 2016

I've had a busy year writing a book myself, so haven't read as many books as usual. However, here are 5 that I loved:

1. Unapologetic by Francis Spufford. 

This is the most beautifully written book I've read in a long time. A friend recommended the chapter on Jesus when I was researching for a teaching series for church. I read the chapter on Jesus and was so struck by it that I went back to the start of the book and read it all through in one sitting. It is just stunning, a telling of the Christian story that pulls no punches and is not afraid of using very strong language in making its points! I found it poignant, challenging, inspiring, hopeful and at times disturbing. 

It is refreshing to read someone who writes so honestly about faith, and while I didn't agree with some of his conclusions, the book was so good that it made me go and buy other books by the author the day after I finished it! I would highly recommend this whether you are a person of faith or not, as long as you can cope with regular uses of the f word throughout the book!

2. Out of Sorts by Sarah Bessey. 

This is the first book I have read by Sarah Bessey and I loved it. She is a brilliant, poetic writer who weaves stories and teaching to great effect and with real passion and emotion. There is so much I could say about this book but you really just need to get it and read it for yourself. She summarises well many of my own experiences of the last few years, for example 'the kingdom is often taking root in small ways -  in our kitchens and in our parish halls, in our streets and our subsidised daycare, in youth group mentoring relationships and after school care, in prayer circles and bylaw meetings and city council'. 

My favourite section of the book touches on 'the holy work of staying' - the importance of rootedness in a community for the good of our own faith and for the kingdom: 'no one talked about how the places where we live matter to our spiritual formation, how we are shaped by our communities, by our rootedness, our geography, by our families, and by the complex web of connections and history that emerge only by staying'. Love it. 

The other thing I really appreciated here is Sarah Bessey's emphasis on the experience and power of the Holy Spirit - 'God's breaking-through power' - 'the wild goose of the Holy Spirit soaring among us, beautiful and ordinary, in this present age'. 

3. A People's History of Christianity by Diana Butler Bass. 

I am currently obsessed with history. Maybe it's my age or something. And I can't get enough of church history. This appealed to me as she attempts to depart from 'Big-C Christianity' (Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, Christian America) towards a 'more humble reading' of the story of Western Christianity. It is not just more humble, but actually more hopeful than some of the big famous male stories we are more familiar with. 

I first heard the book on audio, and loved it so much I had to buy a hard copy. The section on hospitality alone is worth the price of the book. As with any take on history, you may not agree with all of her conclusions, but this is a great addition to any church history collection! Highly recommended. 

4. Forever Young by Oliver Kay

The story of the kid who was better than Ryan Giggs. Of the famous 'Class of 92' that produced the legends who would go on to such great success at Man Utd under Sir Alex Ferguson, not many have heard of Adrian Doherty - football's lost genius. Oliver Kay tells an important story in a moving and uplifting book of a great talent that was lost to football, and a life tragically cut short. A kid who was so good that many rated him higher than Giggs, used to prefer busking on Market Street in Manchester to going to the first team games with his academy friends. He seemed like such a great character and an unlikely footballer with stupendous talent. Whether you're a United fan or not, if you like football you'll enjoy reading this. 

5. Sympathy for Jonah by David Blower. 

A take on the story of Jonah that you've never heard before! You might think of him as the reluctant or even rebellious prophet, but Blower reframes the whole story and brings it to life for our time. Nineveh - now Mosul in Iraq - is the evil empire the Jonah is called to go to and proclaim a message from God. Blower challenges us to love the 'terrible other' as Jesus commanded us to do, and to see the story, and Jonah himself, in a more sympathetic light. His conclusions and challenges are as disturbing to us today as Jesus' command to enemy love, or God's command to Jonah to call the most corrupt and brutal empire of his day to repentance and ultimately, forgiveness. Don't read it unless you want to be seriously challenged and changed. 

My 5 best books of 2015.

The books mentioned here may or may not have been written in 2015, but I read them this year, so that is how they get a place on the list! This year I was writing my MA dissertation on Jesus' meals in the gospels, so some of the choices reflect that fact.

A Place of Refuge - Tobias Jones

This is the compelling story of how the writer Tobias Jones set up a 'woodland sanctuary' in Somerset with his family. As the title suggests, it was founded as a place where those in difficulty could come for refuge and healing. The book contains the story of the first five years of the community, and is fascinating, challenging, and inspiring in equal measure. Jones doesn't hold back in his honest descriptions of the reality behind the often romantic image of communal living, but within the grittiness and difficulties there are stories of real hope and beauty.

I found it fascinating to read about the challenges of raising a young family whilst welcoming all kinds of people including addicts, people with serious mental health issues, and ex-offenders, into the family home and around the dinner table. There are huge ups and downs for the family and they come close to burn out more than once, but they are passionate about their calling (and they do see it as a calling) and persevere, emerging stronger and wiser as a result.

This is brilliantly written, you can almost smell the camp fires and freshly baked bread, and hear the birds singing and the wood being chopped as you read. I would recommend this for anyone interested in simplifying their lives, living more communally, working with vulnerable people, or just to anyone who enjoys a great bit of story telling!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-Refuge-Experiment-Communal-Windsor/dp/1848662483

Shrink - Tim Suttle

Take all you've read about successful churches and put it to one side, and read this book with an open mind. This is the best book on church and leadership I have read for years. I had felt uncomfortable with the values and principles of the church growth movement for some time, and with the way churches often adopt business principles and techniques without questioning whether they are kingdom principles. Tim Suttle addresses all these concerns head on, using the Good to Great movement as an example. Whereas in business, Good is seen as the enemy of Great, Suttle contends that in the kingdom of God, Great is the enemy of Good, and we should be focussing on pursuing goodness rather than greatness.

Suttle challenges the narrative of faster, stronger, bigger, which is often the aim of the mega church movement he has been involved with, and uses the teachings of Jesus to measure success not by growth but by faithfulness. He compares much of the church growth movement to the way athletes achieve success through illegal drug use - it works but it is hugely unhealthy to the body. Pretty strong stuff!

I can't state strongly enough how much this book encouraged and challenged me. It articulated much of what I have been feeling for years, but haven't managed to spell it out. How often do you read a chapter on gentleness in leadership in church leadership books?? How often to you read about the importance of vulnerability for Christian leaders? His writing on individualistic decision making in church communities is utterly brilliant.

If you read one book in 2016, please read Shrink. It is one of those books that is so good that as soon as I finished it I went out and bought 5 copies to give to my friends!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shrink-Faithful-Ministry-Church-Growth-Culture/dp/0310515122/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451421544&sr=1-1&keywords=shrink+tim+suttle

Searching for Sunday - Rachel Held Evans

Rachel Held Evans has produced another absolute cracker! I loved her Year of Biblical Womanhood, and this book retains that great combination of humour, depth, and narrative that gently draws you in until you realise you've been deeply challenged when you thought you were just reading a story!

Evans weaves her thoughts about loving, leaving and finding the church into chapters on the sacraments - baptism, confession, holy orders, communion, confirmation, anointing of the sick and marriage. She is one of many evangelicals who has found depth, meaning and identity in the ancient practices of the historical and liturgical churches, but she has the ability to write about her journey with beauty and poignancy.

The story is incomplete - and that is the point. There are so many people asking big questions about faith and church and mission, and Rachel Held Evans provides some space for people to explore their questions yet stay connected to the historic Christian faith. I would recommend this to anyone rethinking what church is all about, and assure you that whether you agree with her or not, this book will really make you think.

(NOTE: currently on Kindle at £2.99 - bargain!)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SEARCHING-SUNDAY-Religion-Evans-Rachel/dp/0718022122/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451422384&sr=1-1&keywords=searching+for+sunday+evans

From Tablet to Table - Len Sweet

This is the first book I've read by Len Sweet and I really enjoyed it. After spending a whole year writing about Jesus' meals in the first century, it was great to read someone applying it to the 21st century! Sweet is a great writer, full of brilliant quotes that fit into 140 characters!

The book is a cry to 'bring back the table'! Sweet says that 'the table is the place where identity is born - the place where the story of our lives is retold, re-minded, and relived'. He shows how central the table has been in Jewish and Christian history, and how desperate things will become for our sense of identity and community if the current trends of eating quickly, individually or in front to the TV are to continue.

He quotes Jean Leclerc's summary of the gospel: 'Jesus ate good food with bad people'. This is great. I could go on and on with one quote after another, but I would rather you just buy the book and enjoy it for yourself, then go and buy a bigger dining table and start inviting lots of people round for dinner much more regularly than you do now.

One more quote: 'Jesus didn't keep a moral table, he kept a healing table'.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tablet-Table-Leonard-Sweet/dp/1612915817/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451423002&sr=1-1&keywords=tablet+to+table+sweet

America's Pastor - Grant Wacker

In a year where Billy Graham's son Franklin has been getting himself into all kinds of unpleasant debates, it was brilliant to read this in-depth but immensely readable study of the life of Billy Graham - 'America's Pastor'. The book particularly focusses on Graham's role in American public life, including his close friendships with a number of American presidents and their wives.

There are lots of fascinating insights into what made him tick. I loved reading about how he would go into training like a boxer preparing for a fight, in preparation for his crusades. Wacker doesn't hold back when discussing the more difficult issues - accusations of anti-semitism, getting too involved in politics - which leads to a balanced picture of the man, human rather than just an untouchable all-American icon.

As I listened to this on audio book, I don't have any quotes, but this was my favourite biography of the year. Go and get it!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Americas-Pastor-Graham-Shaping-Nation/dp/0674052188/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451423583&sr=1-1&keywords=wacker+americas+pastor

Mini Book reviews from my Christmas reading

Here are a few books I read over Christmas in one paragraph each:

Bounce by Matthew Syed

This book continues the themes of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and brings more detail to the analysis, particularly looking at 'the myth of talent' in sport. Using his own story as a former UK number one table tennis player, Syed shows how the 10,000 hour rule also needs other factors, such as the right opportunities, the right coaching at the right time, how religious belief can play a part as a kind of 'placebo effect' in calming the mind and avoiding choking at the big moments, and exposes the idea of the child genius as false. An interesting read that I found occasionally repetitive but always kept my attention.

Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo

A masterclass in how to prepare the talk of your life! Contains lots of advice on public speaking, getting and maintaining your audience's attention, creating moments they will never forget (including some neuro science to explain how this works!) and finding your unique voice and passion. The three sections are: Emotional (Unleash the master within/master the art of storytelling/have a conversation); Novel (teach me something new/deliver jaw-dropping moments/lighten up); and Memorable (stick to the 18 minute rule, paint a mental picture with multi sensory experiences/stay in your lane). It analyses the most popular TED talks and dissects why they are so good, based on the chapter headings. Interesting stuff and inspiring at times, although for me I wondered how useful it is for someone who preaches week by week - can you/should you aim to deliver jaw-dropping moments and multi sensory experiences and the greatest talk of your life EVERY Sunday morning? Lots to think about though and recommended.

Silence - A Christian History by Diarmaid MacCulloch

An in-depth and thought-provoking history of silence in the Christian tradition by one of the world's experts on Christian history. I recently read his mammoth and brilliant tome A History of Christianity and was really looking forward to this. It is, at varying times, a poetic ode to silence ('it is an ambassador between the mundane and the sublime, solving tensions and mysteries which words cannot touch'); a firm critique of the way the Christian church has silenced dissenting and oppressed voices; and a comprehensive biblical overview of silence. It also contains some beautiful descriptions of the relationship of music and silence, for example 'music has been the colour and often the backbone of the liturgy through most of Christian history: policing that frontier-zone between eternity and the fragility of human words'. There is so much in here, lots I loved and much I was uncomfortable with, but if you want something spiritually and intellectually challenging, go for it!

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

This is the usual easy to read and compelling stuff from Malcolm Gladwell - this one all about the success of the underdog, based on the biblical story. It is an argument for how apparent disadvantages, like being dyslexic, or losing a parent in childhood, can actually become advantages, forcing the underdog into increased creativity, determination and often heroic actions. I was surprised how brief it was, but what I did read was well worth it as always from this author. One nice quote: 'courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you've been through the tough times and you discover they aren't so tough after all'.

Rowan's Rule by Rupert Shortt

This is the kind of book I love - a biography of a great theologian who also has a fascinating life story. Up to this point I have only read one of Rowan Williams' books, Being Christian, which is reviewed elsewhere on this blog. I find thoughtful biographies like this to be a great introduction to a theologian and an inspiration to get into some of their books. Hannah's Child gave me the same motivation to start reading Stanley Hauerwas.

Rowan's Rule is well written and contains a good overview and thoughtful critique of Williams' writings, as well as some insight into his life and ministry, with a particular focus on his turbulent decade as Archbishop of Canterbury. Seemingly destined from a young age for this role and with real charisma and a huge intellect, Williams was nonetheless much misunderstood and often maligned by people from both the conservative and liberal wings of the C of E, and often likewise in the mainstream press. Much of this book is a useful corrective, or at least clarification, of some of the negative headlines that he attracted.

Although the book is not short (400+ pages), I found it very accessible and compelling and managed to read it in a few days - it was pretty un-put-downable at times. The author seemed to me to want to focus particularly on the debate around homosexuality and there was quite a strong theme around Williams' relationship with Catholicism too. I would have liked to have read more about his other works and slightly less about these two themes, as important as they are - for example his emphasis on spirituality and the desert Fathers.

If you want a well written and interesting biography that introduces you to a fascinating and brilliant theologian, I fully recommend you read this.

Take This Bread by Sara Miles

For the last ten years our church has met each Sunday around a meal. There is something that happens to a community that comes together around a meal, brought together by a mutual hunger, invited by Jesus, and open to all. We have had a lot of interesting characters eat with us over the last ten years and I'd love to write about our experiences one day, but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to express the raw emotion, passion and richness that Sara Miles brings to this fascinating memoir. You can smell it and taste it.

Raised as an atheist opposed to Christianity, Sara Miles describes how she wanders into a church and takes communion, then something happens to her that is 'outrageous and terrifying'. She found that 'God, named "Christ" or "Jesus", was real, and in my mouth'. What follows is frankly a riveting, disturbing and inspiring adventure about how a lesbian atheist journalist ended up finding Jesus in the giving and receiving of food, both in the Episcopal rites of communion, and in the growth of her food pantry serving hundreds of needy people in San Francisco.

One of the major themes of the book is the inclusivity of the way she experiences communion, and in how the food pantry runs, modelled on Jesus' radical eating habits described in the gospels. I resonated with how often she finds Jesus not in the rituals of church but in the simple encounter of eating with those who you feel uncomfortable with and who are different to you. This 'radical hospitality' opens Jesus' table to all, and their food pantry is also open to all with no ID required.

I loved how she described the way in which some of the people who came for food began to volunteer to help, and in doing so found meaning and identity. People want more than food: 'they wanted, in fact, church: not the kind where you sit obediently and listen to someone tell you how to behave but the kind where you discover responsibility, purpose, meaning. They wanted a church where they could bring their sorrows, their gifts, their entire messy lives: where they could find community'. Amen to that Sara!

The food pantry looks more and more like the kind of place Jesus would have hung out - hungry, broken people from all different countries, coming together around food, those mentally ill, gang members, addicts, transsexuals and many more, finding community, love and healing in all sorts of ways. God at work in the mess and incompleteness of life.

I loved how she described a conversation that concluded with the idea that 'food and healing go together'. This is so true in my own experience, but most obviously from Jesus' meals in the gospels. Jesus offers a radically inclusive meal invitation, but amidst the trouble and controversy that ensued, healing and miracles and transformation are found.

If you like your Christianity in nice neat packages please don't read this book. But if you enjoy being challenged, don't mind the odd 'F' word and enjoy a great story well told, go for it.

Being Christian by Rowan Williams

This short, four chapter book is a real gem, and for less than a fiver on Kindle it's a no brainer for a bit of theological summer reading by the former Archbishop of Canterbury. The four chapters cover some of the basics of the Christian life: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist and Prayer. The chapter on baptism is superb - Williams writes in such an accessible way yet with real depth and is very quotable. At one point it seemed as though I was going to highlight the entire chapter on my Kindle. Here are just two of the quotes I loved:

"Baptism is a ceremony in which we are washed, cleansed and re-created. It is also a ceremony in which we are pushed into the middle of a human situation that may hurt us, and that will not leave us untouched or unsullied".

" and the gathering of baptised people is therefore not a convocation of those who are privileged, elite and separate, but of those who have accepted what it means to be in the heart of a needy, contaminated, messy world".

On the Bible: "this is what God wants you to hear. He wants you to hear law and poetry and history. He wants you to hear the polemic and the visions".

On Eucharist: "in Holy Communion, Jesus Christ tells us that he wants our company". "The meals that Jesus shares in his ministry are the way in which he begins to re-create a community, to lay the foundations for rethinking what the words 'the people of God' mean". (I love that quote!)

In the Eucharist chapter there is line after line of beautiful prose about the richness of communion, its dependence on the resurrection to have any real meaning, and the sacramental nature of the world. "It is to see everything in some sense sacramentally. If Jesus gives thanks over bread and wine, if Jesus makes that connection between the furthest place away from God, which is suffering and death, and if in his person he fuses those things together, then wherever we are some connection between us and God is possible. All places, all people, all things have about them an unexpected sacramental depth".

If that quote doesn't make you buy the book I don't know what will! The link he makes between communion and our responsibility for the environment is stunning, as well as how he describes communion as an invitation into community and love for others. He makes clear that communion is for those who are wrong rather than right, hungry rather than full, human not divine, and it is "the way in which the whole of the Gospel story is played out in our midst".

I'll stop the review here before I quote the entire book, but I think you get the idea that I'm recommending it to you. Whether you're a new Christian looking for something to help you think deeper about the basics of the Christian life, or you're a mature Christian looking for a fresh take on these four topics, it's well worth a read.